Urban Legends
by House Sylveste
Summary: The pianist, the policewoman, the murderer, the thief: just a few of the people you'll meet in the deserts of Nevada. After all, a place like Death City always has stories to tell and secrets to keep, and these are just a few of them. AU, multiple pairings.
1. Business as Usual

_Author's note: This story will make a bit more sense if you've read my other story set in this same AU 'Death in Death City' first, although it's not essential._

* * *

_1. Business as Usual_

The trick to looking professional is to make what you do seem effortless. I'll give that piece of information for free – just about the only one I will, mind you – and if I were you I'd make the most of it. It's certainly something that has served me very well over the years.

Take a piano piece, for example. You might find yourself one day like me, sitting in front of a piano with about fifty to a hundred people watching you like a hawk to see if you mess up. Your left hand will be hovering over the low notes, your right hand on high, feet on the pedals and I can guarantee you that you'll feel the weight of every last pair of eyes. Even if you can't see them – as I can't, with the footlights in my eyes – you will know they are there. And if you're playing to the kind of crowd I was playing to that night, you will also know that behind every pair there is a booze-addled cloud of ill will that can't wait for you to fuck up so they can throw rotten fruit or, more likely, empty beer bottles.

So the trick, as I said, it to make it look effortless. I sometimes wonder if it's something evolutionary. When our ancestors were fleeing a pack of sabre-toothed tigers, they didn't have time to stop and have reasoned debates about what to do next. So if one guy who looked like he knows what he's talking about yells out to climb a tree to safety, they did. And ever since, we've been pre-programmed to give people who look like they're on top of things the benefit of the doubt. So no matter how badly things go, no matter how badly your mind is churning and debating what to do next, if you give off the air of someone who got it all sorted then you can usually just call any blunders 'improv' and get off scot free.

It's true of music, and it's true of other things as well. But more on those later.

Judging from the polite – borderline enthusiastic – applause I got after I'd finished, I'd say my particular audience that night hadn't noticed any of the one or two particularly egregious fuck-ups I'd blundered into. Then again, I was hardly playing to hardened jazz piano connoisseurs here. The Friday night crowd in the Crescent Moon, the seediest jazz bar in all of downtown Death City, was hardly the kind of place where the people who knew jazz hung out. No, an entirely different crowd frequented this place – which was, of course, exactly why I was performing there.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Soul Evans," said the manager as he strode on stage and shook my hand. I smiled at him and gave a small nod to the audience at large, most of who had already gone back to their drinks.

"Very nice show, Mr Evans," he said to me as we both walked off stage. Behind me, the piano was being wheeled to one side and a saxophonist was setting up his instrument. The manager was a small, round, balding man with tiny spectacles that seemed to be permanently slipping down his rather greasy nose. "I must say, you lived up to your reputation!"

_My reputation?_ I thought, slightly bitterly. _Friend, you don't know the half of it._

"I wonder if we might be seeing some more of you any time soon?"

The manager – still couldn't remember his name – was sounding a bit too hopeful for his own good as we entered the backstage area. Hardly surprising, really. The Crescent Moon could do with all the talent it could get.

"Maybe, maybe," I said, straightening my tie and checking my appearance in a nearby mirror. Black pinstripe suit, red shirt, black tie… the model of the professional businessman.

"Well, ah, our door's always open to you," he said, rooting around in his inside pocket and handing me my cheque for the evening's work. I studied it with a slightly critical air. It was enough to cover the night's expenses, I supposed, and tucked it into my wallet. "And you've got our number. Just give us a call if you feel like it!"

_Actually, my wastepaper basket has your number_, I wanted to say, but kept smiling. "I'll think about it," I lied and shook his hand. He had one of those handshakes that make you fight the urge to check you haven't just been handed a wet haddock. We parted ways after that, him to go and introduce the saxophonist I'd seen setting up a minute ago and me to make a beeline for the bar.

I fought my way through the usual collection of thugs and heavies that populate the Crescent Moon every Friday night. The Crescent Moon jazz bar really is the most astounding example of real life imitating art I have ever come across. What the clientele had clearly done was grow up on a diet of films, books and TV shows (actually, scratch books) that all portrayed gangsters as hanging out in seedy bars where the air was full of smoke, the walls were panelled in patently-fake wood, all the men wore double-breasted suits and inside every violin case was a Thompson automatic. And in all those bars they're always playing jazz, or blues, or soul, not that these meatheads would ever be able to tell the difference. "Three-four time" to most of them means how long the jail sentence they're looking at is. And so when they graduated into the real world of drugs and smuggling and 'hits', they naturally looked for such a place as they'd seen in all the movies. And the Crescent Moon was where they all ended up.

It certainly had the fake wooden panelling, although Nevada's anti-smoking laws meant that the air was merely full of the smell of cigarette smoke instead of the real deal. Very few people wore double-breasted suits, although it was nice to see that most of them had managed to outgrow torn jeans, sleeveless T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. The majority of the clothes being worn in that bar came under the heading of 'easy to conceal a gun under'.

"Mr Evans," said the bartender as I wormed my way through the last line of people and propped myself up on the bar's slightly sticky top. "What'll it be?" _Fewer clichés_ would have been the unkind thing to say, so I stuck to "Double whiskey on the rocks, please." I scanned the bar as I waited for my drink to be poured, and came to the slightly unsettling realisation that I could take a good guess at the relative position of every single guy within his particular criminal organisation there based on his dress and act alone. Clearly I'd been in too many places like this one. Most of them looked fairly middle-management, the kind that act as a go-between separating the knuckle-dragging thugs from the guys who the big boss would actually deign to meet in person. The actual knuckle-draggers would be scattered around bars all over the city, whilst the bigwigs would be off in private clubs, or maybe one of the fabled backrooms of Chupa Cabra's where the champagne was hundreds of dollars a bottle and the girls were thrown in for free. The clientele of the Crescent Moon bar were the kind of folk who didn't really seem to know where else to go.

"There you go," the bartender said as she set my drink down in front of me. She had one of those accents that turned it into "thur ya gah".

"How much do I owe you?" I asked, reaching for my wallet.

"Oh, nothing. Gentleman over there's paying for your tab tonight, Mr Evans." She pointed and then was gone, off to serve someone else. I, meanwhile, was left looking in the direction she indicated, spotting a flash of white sat at a table on the other side of the room.

_Bingo._

I worked my way across to the table, nearly getting my drink spilled twice in the process. Eventually I made it over, drew back a chair and sat down across from the man who had very kindly paid for my double whiskey – and who, with any luck, would be paying for a lot more drinks over the next few months.

I suppose now might be a good time to come clean about who I really am.

Oh sure, you already know some of it. Soul Evans, twenty seven years of age, pianist and well-dressed misanthrope, right? And clearly not that great at the piano if he has to play in places like the Crescent Moon.

Well, let me tell you right now that the Crescent Moon wasn't my normal place by a very long margin. I play professionally, I'll have you know (and suddenly I sound like my grandpa), to audiences who have paid for the privilege in places where the refreshments cost more than you can afford and come in crystal glasses. Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm not as good as my brother Wes – currently a member of the LA philharmonic, or 'LA Phil' as he insists on calling it – but I can still hold my own against most musicians this town can offer. Although considering the state of Death City these days, that's not as impressive a boast as I might wish.

So yeah, that's the Soul Evans most people know if they've heard of him at all: decent piano player, specialises in improv pieces.

The Soul Evans they don't know works, at least part-time, as an information broker.

Like I said earlier, it's all about sounding like you know what you're doing. Now, I know what you're probably thinking: information broker probably means I hack government databases, right? I must be a computer genius, someone who knows their way around firewalls and passwords and the like. Well, here's one more piece of free advice: if your computer breaks, do yourself a favour and don't call me. Without the instruction manual, my knowledge of computers is pretty damn limited. I can't code, if that's what you mean. What I _can_ do is, to all intents and purposes, social improv.

That's something else Hollywood has to answer for. The public thinks, after watching films where hackers spend time staring at cool-looking displays and babbling on about stuff that sounds vaguely technical, that every bit of information on a computer is guarded by all manner of security features and only the truly skilled can hack past it all to get at what they need.

That may well be true, for all I know. What I do know is that plugged into every database in the nation is a tired, bored, harassed data entry clerk who just wants to go home to his family and who will give you just about any piece of information he has access to if you ask him nicely, sound like you go golfing with his boss and, perhaps most importantly, treat him like a decent human being.

Of course, it's a bit harder than that. But that's the gist of it, and that's what I do when I need to make ends meet.

The man across the table from me had hired me for just that reason.

He was an imposing man even when sat down, six-foot-six of hard muscle and calculated poise. He wore a pristine white suit that had somehow managed not to get stained despite the fact that he _must_ have spent longer than ten minutes inside the Crescent Moon. His carefully groomed hair was almost as white as mine, and he had one of those smiles that make you think of sharks and cold, lonely oceans.

"White Star," I said, by way of greeting.

Death City's premier mob boss, head of the Star Clan gang, ruler of the city's underworld and perennial thorn in the side of the DCPD – not least that Captain Kidd who always seemed to be sniffing around my slightly more unethical clients – inclined his head slightly at my presence.

"Mr Evans," he said, in a voice like sleeping thunder. "I must say, I was most impressed with your piano piece. You have talent, Mr Evans… in one area, at least."

I favoured him with my best cocky grin. "Well, you know how it is. Manager heard I was going to turn up tonight, and when a man offers you ten minutes behind a piano you just can't refuse." That was a lie – I'd deliberately contacted the manager about a performance so I could stave off meeting this man for a little while longer. There was something about him that I didn't like. Maybe it was that I was best friends with his son but he was still treating me like a total stranger. Or maybe it was that he knew where I lived.

"Indeed. Well, I see you have availed yourself of the bar, Mr Evans, so unless you have any other pressing engagements I think we ought to get on with things."

_In other words, shut the fuck up and give me what I've paid you for._

"Right. Yeah." I reached into my pocket and threw a flash drive down onto the table. "Everything's on there. Just as you asked."

"Excellent." White Star produced a small handheld computer from somewhere, plugged the drive in and began browsing through the contents. "Standard procedure," he said in response to my '_what, don't you trust me?' _expression.

"But of course," I said, taking a sip of my whiskey.

"So, Mr Evans," he said, setting the handheld down on the table and powering it off. "What's your take on this man?"

I shrugged, not quite sure what game White Star was playing but willing to go along with it for a bit. "Name's Masamune Nakatsukasa. Born in Japan, moved to the USA when he was six with his father, mother and sister. Family settled down in LA. By all accounts this guy didn't have the best upbringing. Got involved with crime early on, several minor convictions: burglary, public disturbance, that kind of thing. Then, sometime between his eighteenth and twenty second birthdays, he signs on with Arachnophobia. Works in the distribution of crack cocaine for a while. Gets busted once or twice early on, but so does everyone in that trade. Rises up the ranks until he's pretty much running the drugs show in LA. Guy's clearly got a head for business. Then he comes to the attention of one of the second-in-command, guy called Giriko. Becomes only one step removed from Arachne herself in the process. Up until a few months ago, life was looking pretty sweet for Masamune Nakatsukasa."

I took another sip. White Star watched me with an unreadable expression, so I decided I was supposed to carry on.

"But like I say, a few months ago everything goes to hell for him. Giriko comes up with a plan to get Mosquito in jail and it all goes horribly wrong. Now Giriko himself is taking the heat and he needs somewhere to dump it, and fast. So he dumps it all over Masamune's head. Masamune takes off east, last seen heading right for Death City with about half of Arachnophobia's hired guns after him.

"There's an interesting addition to this story, as a matter of fact. You know how I said he had a sister? Well I did some extra digging, free of charge. Tsubaki, she was called. She was clearly made of better stuff than her brother. She left LA the moment she could, and got herself a nice little house here in Death City of all places." I smiled at White Star's raised eyebrow. He clearly hadn't expected me to be so thorough. "At the moment, she's working as a secretary for Southwest Construction Ltd." That was the front company managed by the man sat right in front of me. "For the CEO, no less."

I downed my drink and gave White Star my best grin. "I could probably tell you a fair bit about that CEO, for the right price."

Looking back, that may have been a mistake. White Star gave me a glower that could upset a mountain and threw a brown envelope down on the table.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," he said quite levelly, got up and left, cutting through the crowd like an icebreaker.

I pocketed the envelope, sat back in my chair and sighed. I'd kind of expected a thinly-veiled threat from the man, possibly involving a corny line such as "your health insurance couldn't cover it." But he'd been surprisingly classy. If he made threats, he let your imagination do all the work for him. Hard to believe Black Star was his son, when you thought of it that way.

My phone buzzed and vibrated in my pocket. Checking the screen, I saw one new message from a very familiar number.

_Alley round back, 5 mins – M_

I swore quietly and got to my feet, hurrying for the exit and, with any luck, a second customer.

* * *

The alley round the back of the Crescent Moon was exactly the kind of alley you'd expect to be round the back of a second-rate bar frequented by the lackeys of the Death City underworld. Lit only by the faint glow from the bar's windows, it was filled with garbage and smelled terrible. Dustbins leaned drunkenly against one another, vomiting trash into the gutter.

Clearly, it was the perfect place for a rendezvous.

"I thought you said five minutes," I said as familiar footsteps approached, putting down a newspaper I'd fished out of one of the bins in boredom. The news wasn't great, but when was it ever? Continued economic downturn, jobs being slashed left right and centre all over the city. The heatwave which had been sat over the whole region for a fortnight was set to continue until the end of the month. Gang wars in the western suburbs, being contained by an almost permanent SWAT presence. Some new drug called black blood (_who comes up with drug names?_ I wondered idly) appearing on the streets and wreaking havoc. And, to cap it all, a damn serial killer loose in the city – the three-eye killer as they were calling him this week, clubbing his victims over the head in dark alleys and tearing open their bellies, painting the dusty brickwork with ropes of gore and his signature sign: three vertical eyes glaring down on the carnage he left behind.

_Dark alleys like the one you're in right now_, some bastard part of my brain decided to remind me, and for a moment I was wondering whether those footfalls weren't the herald of something much, much worse than I'd expected.

But then she rounded the corner and I forgot all about the economy and the weather, the civil unrest and drugs and serial killers. Maka Albarn, as far as I was concerned, was more than enough reason to think that God hadn't abandoned us just yet.

Detective Albarn of the Death City Police Department, to give her professional title, had decided to show up in this slimy alley wearing a smart-casual white blouse under a cream jacket that, I had to say, did go rather well with her ash-blonde hair. Her ability to colour-coordinate quickly became a sideshow, however, as I noticed that she had also decided to wear a red and black plaid miniskirt that was just short enough to bring the word 'dangerous' to mind.

"Sorry, Soul. I got a bit held up," she said apologetically.

"Ah, it's fine," I replied, trying very hard to un-notice the miniskirt. "Nice to see you again, Maka."

"You too. Your piano playing was great."

I raised both eyebrows at that. "You were in there earlier?" _Dressed like that?_

She grinned at me. "Left just before you got off the stage."

By now I wasn't grinning at all. "And did you see the guy in the white suit? Did he ring any bells? Jesus, Maka, what if he'd seen you? You know he's probably got the faces of the entire central-west precinct staff memorised, right? I know most of the guys in there aren't the brightest, but White Star…"

"I can take care of myself," she said, in that _don't you dare suggest I can't_ tone of hers. "And besides, what could he have done?"

I decided not to answer that question. "You're right. Ok, so, what's the business this time?"

"Who said this was business?" she asked with a small smile.

_Oh don't give me that shit_, I wanted to say. Maka and I have known each other since we met in our first year at the University of Nevada, her studying law and me bumbling through a course in music that I would soon drop out of. During the course of those nine years, it's become common knowledge between us that while I wouldn't mind going to bed with her, she rather _would_ mind such a thing, thank you very much. If there is any love between us, it's Platonic. End of. Any suggestions otherwise from me will result in me getting hit with a dictionary or a law textbook (and those things _hurt_) in short order.

Of course, that still leaves her complete freedom to make suggestive comments here and there. And to be honest, I'm largely fine with that. After all, she has to deal with me, and I suppose I can get pretty difficult when I want to. So a bit of teasing is, I suppose, getting off lightly.

"With that miniskirt, what else could it be?" I asked sweetly, and received a brief glare for my troubles.

"I need you to find out everything you can about someone for me," she said, all business and professionalism now.

"Shouldn't be a problem. Who?"

"A man called Masamune Nakatsukasa."

Well now there was a surprise. Suddenly, Masamune seemed to be a very popular man. "What's this for?" I asked, a little warily. I have a rule about not getting involved but something was clearly going on here, and I'll admit I was more than a little curious.

Maka hesitated. She clearly wasn't supposed to tell me anything. "I'm saying this as your friend," she said at last, an old phrase between us that meant _if I find out you've sold someone this I'll rip your testicles off_. "We'd been hearing rumours about Nakatsukasa for a while now. Something big is happening, and he was right in the middle of it."

_Interesting use of the past tense there, Maka._

"But we found him dead last night. Now the chief wants all the info we can get on him. He doesn't even care where it comes from, as long as it's reliable." That surprised me. Captain Kidd was aggressively by-the-book, or at least as by-the-book as you could get in a place like Death City.

"And so you came to me," I said, my mind working furiously. Why was White Star collecting info on a dead man? Did he even know Masamune was dead? And, perhaps the most important question from my point of view, should I tell Maka? Technically, my dealings with White Star were over and I could do as I pleased now. Realistically, I didn't think I should piss off the king of Death City's underworld and the father of one of my best friends.

"Yeah." Maka blushed slightly and looked awkward. "Look, I know you're probably busy, but could you bump this one to the top of the list? Please, Soul? For me?"

And there it was, the famous Maka Albarn shy smile, enough to melt the heart of even the coldest of men. Or this man, anyway. From where I stood it didn't make much of a difference.

Fuck it, I thought. White Star can shove it.

"No need," I said. "What I was talking to White Star about? Same thing. He wanted everything I could dig up on this Masamune Nakatsukasa guy, just like you do. Listen, Maka, I don't know what's going on here but it's enough to get the chief of Star Clan sniffing around in person."

Maka's eyes went wide. "White Star…"

"Yeah. I can make a copy of the stuff I gave him, have it on your desk tomorrow morning. I can even do a bit of extra digging, see if there's anything I've missed."

She grinned and for a brief moment I thought I was going to get a hug. "God, Soul," she laughed, "you're a lifesaver. Thank you so much. I… I definitely owe you one."

Now it was my turn to smile awkwardly. "Don't mention it," I said.

"I need to get back to the precinct," she said, already turning and starting to hurry off. "But I'll be in touch!" she called over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

I was left standing alone in a dark alley round the back of a seedy bar, ankle-deep in rubbish and with a couple of days hard work stretching ahead of me. Depending on how things turned out, I might yet have just pissed off a mob boss and got myself caught up in something that had got even the unflappable Captain Kidd clutching at straws.

Most people would consider that a pretty bad state to be in.

But the trick, as I have long since learned, is to make it look as if you know _exactly_ what you are doing.

* * *

_Author's note: One of the things I've noticed whilst writing fanfiction is that I seem to have terrible trouble sticking to stories that have plots. I start off eager and full of ideas and by the time chapter eight or nine rolls around it's becoming a bit of a chore and all my ideas seem to have gone away. So this is my attempt to deal with that problem: a collection of short stories, each one self-contained and having little bearing on the others. We'll see how it turns out. Thank you for reading this and if you're willing to review I'd appreciate it no end._


	2. Career Killers Part 1: First Impressions

_2. Career Killers_

_Part 1: First Impressions_

Ragnarok has become convinced that no security system in the world is a match for Crona when he's going paranoid.

The two of them are sat in a sweltering old Ford that smells of desperation, spilled booze and the occasional dead body. Most recently, however, it smells of the cigarettes Ragnarok's been chain-smoking for the last hour and a half as he slowly bakes to death and curses Medusa with all his heart for not providing them with a car with decent air conditioning.

The Ford is parked across the road from Chupa Cabra's, Death City's premier nightclub and den of iniquity like no other. There are an awful lot of rumours about what you can buy if you walk into the right room in that place once the sun goes down, the queue stretches around the block and the bass leaks out onto the street like a heartbeat. Ragnarok knows that most of the rumours are not only true, but also decidedly mundane. Drugs, women (and men), information, murder: all can be purchased in that place if you know who to talk to.

But Chupa Cabra's is a quite different beast in the daytime, and now, as the livid Nevada sun beats down on Death City and sends all but the most foolhardy scurrying inside like woodlice after you lift up a rotten log, the place is as quiet as the grave. Instead of a neon-bright pulsing machine, the nightclub now is a dusty, drab, block of concrete with peeling paint, leeched of any colour and rendered a dull, washed-out grey by the glare of the sun. All the staff have packed up and gone home for the night, with the possible exception of one or two luckless cleaners.

Which makes it the perfect time to 'case the joint', as they say in films and absolutely nowhere else.

And which in turn is why Ragnarok is sitting in this damn car, chain smoking and dying of heatstroke, with a dangerous basket case in his passenger seat.

Crona is sat next to him with a plan of the club's staff areas on his knees, along with a sheaf of printed pictures of the interior and a diagram of the electronics of the place that Medusa has gotten from somewhere. With that, and the crippling paranoia that takes hold of most junkies after they pass a certain point but seems especially advanced in Crona, he is constructing on a notepad a best-guess of the club's security systems – where cameras might be placed, which doors will be locked regularly and who would have the keys, any infrared alarms, and-

"-dogs?" Ragnarok asks incredulously, leaning over to see what Crona's written in his jittery handwriting.

Crona nods, a short, sharp movement that's more a twitch at Ragnarok's voice than it is a confirmation of what he's said.

"They might have Alsatians," he mutters, pausing to gnaw at a fingernail. "Big ones," he adds. "You'd probably have to take care of them. I don't know how to deal with dogs." And he goes back to scribbling.

_For fuck's sake_, Ragnarok thinks. He winds down the window, letting in a blast of hot, gritty air. "You hear that?" he asks Crona, nodding his head at the open window.

Crona listens for a second. The only sound he can hear is the roar of distant traffic, the whoop and wail of sirens and the grumble of a plane coming in to land at the airport. "What?" he asks, warily.

"That, Crona, is the sound of _no fucking dogs_. Jesus. What else do you think they might have? Laser grids? Bottomless snake pits? A fucking minotaur?" He gives Crona a small punch on the side of the head. "Get back to work, and try and keep it realistic."

Crona mutters something about how he wishes Ragnarok would stop being to mean to him, but is ignored. Within seconds he's lost in his imaginations again, looking up now and then at the club, a little warily, as if he suspects it's going to try and escape on him.

Ragnarok sighs and winds the window back up. Not that it makes much of a difference. The old Ford's air conditioning is so bad he suspects someone's put the hot/cold dial on back-to-front by mistake. He gazes listlessly out of the window. Chupa Cabra's is built on the top of a slight hill in the southern half of Death City, and consequently has the closest thing to a view you're going to get in the Mojave Desert. From where Ragnarok's sat he can see all the way to the centre of downtown, a sea of dull colours and glittering glass that hurts his eyes to look at for too long.

Somewhere out in that tangle of concrete, Ragnarok thinks, is the man that he and Crona have to kill tonight. He wonders what he is doing right now. Playing with his children? Going shopping? Making love to his wife? Washing the car, doing his accounts? All of them unlikely. This man's rich enough to have someone do all of those things for him.

That avenue of thought cut off quickly by the realisation that he genuinely doesn't give a shit about what their target is doing right now, only where he will be tonight, Ragnarok reaches round and retrieves a newspaper from the back seat. It's a couple of days old, probably left there by the last Arachnophobia people to use the car. There's a small red-brown stain down the side of the front page, which Ragnarok ignores.

The news is the same as ever. Black blood violence is on the rise (Ragnarok glances at Crona when he reads that), although the police are saying that 'all necessary measures are being taken' to combat the threat. In other news, gang wars in the west, serial killers in the centre, unemployment in the north and discontent just about everywhere. He skips past it all, not caring. The paper says that Death City is on the verge of collapse, but he knows better. He's seen cities on the verge of collapse, and he knows this one has a way to go yet. It's limping, certainly, but there's some fight in it yet. There's probably just enough time for Medusa to make a quick buck out of it, and then he supposes they'll be off to plunder another city whilst the times are good.

He groans as he leafs his way to the back pages and finds the in-depth weather report. It doesn't look good: the heatwave that's been sat over the city for two weeks now is only going to carry on. Ragnarok hates the heat. It makes people unpredictable. If you pull a knife on a middle-aged accountant in a dark alley in the New York or Detroit winter, you know you're going to be going home with his wallet in your pocket and his pleas for mercy ringing in your ears. But if you do the same when the mercury's pushing 120 degrees in a dusty, dry street out here in the desert, there is yet a chance that said accountant will snap and try out some kung-fu moves he saw in a Jackie Chan film one time. What that often means is that you'll then have to hurt him, even kill him if he's mad enough, and that's a complication Ragnarok can always do without. Not, he'd be at pains to point out, that he's the kind of guy who needs to hold up people in side streets for cash (or one who balks at killing). But it's a good example.

Crona, on the other hand, seems to thrive on the heat. Ragnarok doesn't fully understand it, but he has a theory. The heat makes people jumpy, angry, ready to lash out. And he guesses that it reminds Crona, ever so slightly, of a black blood high, when all the world's just meat to you and no-one can stand in your way.

But then Crona's always been a strange one. Listless with the heat and counting the hours until night falls and the pair of them can really get to work, Ragnarok lets his mind wander back to the first time he met the boy, almost two years ago.

* * *

Los Angeles was afraid.

Well, that was not strictly true. There were probably a few people in that city who were not afraid as that summer drew to a close and the first whispers of autumn rolled over the city, chilling the air and browning the leaves. But the kind of people who Ragnarok worked with – or, rather, worked against – they were afraid, most certainly.

It had all started about six weeks ago, with the murder of a prominent Mafioso in his downtown apartment. Someone, no-one knew who, had crept into that man's room while he slept (evading seven security guards, a CCTV system and two layers of alarms in the process) and slit his throat from ear to ear. One of the most powerful men in the LA underworld was bled out onto his eiderdown pillows. On its own the incident would not have been too remarkable – the man was a mob boss, this was how things often ended for people like him – but what was odd was that no-one ever claimed responsibility.

A week later, with the man's criminal empire in disarray, Arachnophobia started to move in on his turf. Whoever had organised the murder, they couldn't have done it at a better time for Arachne and Medusa to take advantage of it. And that certainly got the rumour mill grinding.

But the whole affair might yet have been forgotten. In the shifting, murky world of criminal politics leaders come and go, and there was every chance that the murder would slip through the cracks and be remembered only as a footnote in the multi-volume work that was Arachnophobia's rise to power.

And then it happened again.

The victim this time was a police officer, a captain of a precinct who had been spearheading an investigation into Medusa's criminal dealings. He was found dead in his house, his throat and belly torn open. This time there was an outcry. The police had suddenly lost one of their own, and were no longer willing to overlook the matter. A new captain was brought in to replace him, one who vowed to redouble the efforts to bring 'criminal elements of our society' to justice. Within a week he was dead too, gouged open in his own home along with three other officers whilst they played a game of poker in his living room. Now the police were livid – but also frightened. They'd lost five men in ten days, and each time the murder hadn't left a single trace of evidence behind. The right noises about how this would not be tolerated were made, but this time it was mostly a show. The investigation into Medusa was quietly dropped, and the one into the deaths of the officers went on for a few years before being shelved.

News travels fast in criminal circles, and this particular nugget was spreading like wildfire. It was official: Medusa had a killer on her payroll, someone who could get past any security and butcher you in your own home. Suddenly, important men wouldn't be seen without a bodyguard, and security companies noted a sharp increase in the sales of burglar alarms and extra door locks that summer. Not that it seemed to do them much good.

As the season came it its sweltering peak, the murders got worse. Not only were Medusa's enemies being killed on an almost weekly basis, but the brutality of the killings was increasing as well. Whole families would be slaughtered instead of individual targets, sons and daughters sliced apart next to their parents. Forensics counted well over fifty knife wounds in one corpse until they gave up and stopped counting. One victim was so unrecognisable that they had to check his DNA to get an ID match. It was with no small relief that the city received the news that Medusa would soon be leaving for Nevada – at the rate things were going, people were starting to wonder whether there'd be any people left in LA by the time she'd finished with it.

Precicely none of this was on Ragnarok's mind as he went to meet Medusa one late summer afternoon, with the sun dying on the horizon and the smog blurring the air. He had been expecting a meeting about the upcoming expansion project. Death City had been selected as the beachhead for the organisation's advancement into Nevada. The right property deals had been made, various officials had been bribed and the whole city was now waiting for the first Arachnophobia agents to arrive like the outriders of a Mongol horde. It was the biggest single expansion of a criminal empire in American history, and Ragnarok was rightly proud to be a part of it. He had been anticipating a talk about promotions and hierarchies as Medusa cemented her powerbase, or perhaps a review of some mundane administrative business. If he had thought anything at all about Medusa's killer over the past months, he had imagined some psycho ex-military type driven half insane by a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. But as he stood before Medusa in her office with the sun slanting in through the windows and thoughts of Death City in his head, it had seemed a particularly distant concern.

Quite what the quiet, pale, painfully thin kid with pink hair and dressed in jeans and a threadbare jacket had been doing in the office with them he really had no idea. But he wasn't about to ask.

"Ragnarok, meet Crona," Medusa had said, seated behind a desk littered with empty cups of coffee and mounds of paper. The expansion was taking up vast chunks of everyone's time, and judging by the amount of paperwork in front of her that was especially true of those at the top. Medusa probably hadn't slept in a week, Ragnarok reflected. Not that you'd notice – between the uncreased business suit that looked like it had been ironed onto her and her sharp, calculating eyes Medusa looked as awake and alert as ever.

Ragnarok turned around to see that the pink-haired kid had chosen the couch furthest from the desk and closest to the door and curled up on it like a frightened hedgehog. Wary blue eyes peered out from the gap between his knees and his fringe.

"And Crona, meet Ragnarok," she continued, as Ragnarok walked over to the boy and stuck out his hand. "Ah… nice to meet you," he said, not quite sure where Medusa was going with this.

The boy just looked at his hand like a rabbit watches a stoat.

"Shake hands, Crona," said Medusa with an icy edge to her voice.

Slowly, the boy reached out and lightly brushed his fingers against Ragnarok's gloved ones, before withdrawing his hand quickly like the man had given him an electric shock.

"While you haven't met Crona before," Medusa said, "you're probably familiar with his work." She dug around in one of the piles of paperwork and pulled out a folder, which she pushed across her desk towards Ragnarok. He opened it, and a veritable carnival of horrors spilled out across the desk.

The folder was full of pictures, each one a grisly tableau of death. Bodies lay strewn across carpeted floors that ran red with blood. Men slumped against walls, their hands slack against their necks where they had spent their last waking minutes trying desperately to hold ragged wounds closed. A woman lying on a bed with a mildly surprised expression and a dagger protruding from her head like an exclamation mark. Close-ups of wounds and blood spatters lurked in amongst the wider shots, each one carrying its own story of how these people must have died. Even as he recoiled in surprise, a more analytical part of Ragnarok's brain was pointing out details: see, this man must have had his throat slit when he was keeling (why else would the spray pattern on the wall be so low?), this one from behind, that one as he was turning around (perhaps wondering what a noise was?).

After a moment, he realised he was looking at photos from police reports. Evidence labels and crime-scene equipment littered the peripheries, the forces of order trying to impose sanity on the madness they'd been brought in to deal with.

A further jolt hit him as he looked at one close-up and recognised the face it showed. Captain Penn of the LAPD, aged 49 years, long-time persecutor of Arachnophobia and particular nemesis of Medusa, found dead in his house two months ago… Full realisation hit Ragnarok like a sledgehammer.

Medusa had described these slaughterhouses as Crona's 'work'. Somehow Ragnarok doubted the kid worked as a police photographer.

"As you can see," she went on, "Crona can be quite effective when he chooses to be. Unfortunately, he has recently become a little… unstable."

Ragnarok looked back down at the photographs. _Unstable_ was certainly one way to describe it, he supposed.

"He needs a firm hand – someone who can keep him on a leash. Ordinarily I'd see to such a job myself, but with the expansion looming I really can't afford to waste time on him."

_Oh, I don't like where this is heading_, Ragnarok thought. And Medusa spoke the dreaded words:

"So I've got a new job for you. I want you to be Crona's partner."

It had been, Ragnarok reflected, downhill from there.

* * *

"Done."

Ragnarok snaps back into the real world with an almost audible _clunk_. A part of him feels vaguely embarrassed – he always shouts at Crona for getting lost in his own thoughts and here's him doing exactly that. But he pushes that irritating thought away and focuses on the here and now.

"What?"

"I said I'm done." Crona pushed his notepad, filled with scrawlings, over towards him. Ragnarok takes it and skims thorough it as best he can – Crona's handwriting is impenetrable at the best of times. He notes with some satisfaction that any references to guard dogs have been vigorously crossed out. What's left is a pretty passable guess of the club's security, along with a recommended plan of action: through a back window, down to the security room to disable the systems, and then up to the main club rooms themselves to hunt down their target. Medusa has been clear on this one: she wants this man killed as publically as her two pet assassins can manage. A message has to be sent (not for the first time), and the idea that Arachnophobia can strike in full view and get away with it will be powerfully demoralising for their enemies.

Especially those bastards in the Star Clan gang, who have proven to be much more resilient than anyone had ever guessed.

Ragnarok grunts with satisfaction and shoves the notebook back into Crona's hands. He reaches to the Ford's ignition and turns the key. For a few seconds there is only a sickly coughing from the engine and he prays to every god that he doesn't believe in to show him some mercy and have the damn thing work. Maybe one of them hears his plea, for after a few seconds the engine does indeed clatter into life. Throwing the car into gear, he pulls away from the kerb and the two of them head off towards downtown, the towers of the city centre like pillars of fire in the desert sun.

* * *

_Author's note: This is the first of a two-part story that is essentially a 'day in the life of' Crona and Ragnarok in this world. Next chapter will be up within a week or two, hopefully. As with the previous story, reading 'Death in Death City' might help, but after this it won't be necessary. As always, thanks for reading. _


End file.
